Toho has made more than 30 Godzilla films since 1954, and across them the King of the Monsters has faced more than two dozen kaiju. Yet if you have only watched what reaches cinemas outside Japan this century, you would think he had four rivals. Godzilla Minus Zero, in cinemas now, keeps that trend alive — and some fans reckon it is time the rest of the roster got a turn.
The new film, again written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, reunites pilot Kōichi Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and his family two years after the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, in a postwar Japan now stalked by a familiar three-headed menace. Reviews have been warm — several critics are already predicting a second visual effects Oscar — but the antagonist choice has reopened a long-running debate about how Toho deploys its monster bench.
Ghidorah takes another turn
King Ghidorah is once again the big bad, continuing a run that has made the alien dragon Godzilla’s most frequent enemy. In Minus Zero he crash-lands in occupied-era Japan and starts claiming the land for his own purposes — a pointed metaphor for the American military presence hovering over the story, and by all accounts a terrifying screen presence, hurling anti-gravity beams that lift whole city blocks into the air before dropping them.
The problem is not quality. It is frequency.
“King Ghidorah is basically the Joker to Godzilla’s Batman: it’s awesome when they square up, but sometimes you wish they’d go with a different bad guy.”
The kaiju left on the shelf
Where is Gigan, the alien cyborg with scythe hands and a buzzsaw in his belly? Or Megalon, the bipedal rhinoceros beetle with drill fists who guards Seatopia — the franchise’s answer to Atlantis? Or Biollante, the gargantuan plant queen created by splicing Godzilla cells with a rose?
None has appeared in live action for decades. The roll call of neglect extends further: well-liked Heisei and Millennium foes such as Destoroyah, Orga and Megaguirus each managed a single film and never came back. The only post-Shōwa kaiju to appear in more than one live-action movie is Kiryu, the Self-Defence Force Mechagodzilla built around the bones of the original 1954 Godzilla.
Even Anguirus, the armoured ankylosaur who fought Godzilla in his second outing and then became his most steadfast ally across the fifteen Shōwa-era films, has been absent from live action since 2004. For a monster who once headlined his own farewell — Godzilla vs. Gigan aside — the silence is telling. Fans have petitioned for years, and Toho has form here: the studio happily resurrected Mechagodzilla as Kiryu in the Millennium series when the appetite was clear.
Key point: Since Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004, the only Toho kaiju to appear in live action are Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla.
Why the MonsterVerse keeps inventing its own monsters
The American side of the franchise has its own excuse. The MonsterVerse reportedly licenses each Toho monster individually, so Legendary has repeatedly designed originals instead — the MUTOs of the 2014 Godzilla reboot, Skar King in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Functional as they are, none has lodged in the culture the way the classic Toho creations did. Western audiences who never had cinema runs for Anguirus — Godzilla’s very first adversary, back in 1955’s Godzilla Raids Again — simply never formed the attachment.
One monster is escaping purgatory
There is at least one crumb of comfort. SpaceGodzilla — the crystalline Heisei-era clone who has been absent since 1994 — is reportedly set to appear in the upcoming Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, according to a Writers Guild of America registration. If the paperwork is accurate, the American franchise may end up raiding Toho’s shelf before Toho does.
The perfect moment to unleash the rest
The commercial argument has never been stronger. Minus One won an Oscar on a fraction of a Hollywood budget, Minus Zero is drawing some of the best reviews in the 70-year franchise, and the MonsterVerse keeps delivering at the box office. International audiences are demonstrably hungry for Japanese kaiju cinema.
Which makes it the ideal window to reintroduce the wider roster — the cyborgs, the plant queens, the drill-handed beetle kings who have waited decades for a rematch. Three heads, it turns out, are not the only option on the menu.
